10 Famous Sapa Food To Eat Before You Leave

Being favored by nature, Sapa is known as the paradise for tourists to relax. People those who come here will be enchanted by its fresh air, cool climate, range after range of mountains, outstanding scenery and especially the amazing culinary scene. If you have a chance to visit Sapa, plan ahead to fullfil your belly with these 10 local foods in Sapa.

1. Thang Co (Thắng cổ)

Thang Co is the traditional food of Hmoong people and it has been cooked for hundreds years. Thang Co is a type of soup which is made of horsemeat, horse’s viscera and horse’s bone. You might feel a little bit panic-stricken when hearing about the ingredients but that feeling will be blown away once you taste it. Cooking this dish not only requires time but also the skill of cooks. The seasonings comprises of 12 spices from cardamon, ginger, citronella, anise to cinnamon twig.

The locals stew horsemeat with these 12 spices in a big pot within a couple of hours. To elevate the flavor of Thang Co soup, they serve it with fresh vegetable and a special red hot pepper name Muong Khuong.

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2. Sapa Cap Nach Pork (Thịt heo cặp nách Sapa)

Cap Nach pork is a specialty of this mountainous region. The ways to make this dish is diverse. The locals usually roast a whole pig directly on charcoal so that the skin covering the pork is very brittle while the pork inside is very delicious and fleshy. Others stir-fry thie pork with little or no water and herbs. No matter how does you cook it, make sure the pork is soft with a hint of spicy.

3. Pau Play Day Cake

Pau play day cake has been in Viet Nam for a long time since the Hung King. Time flies, the cooking manner has been changed but the original taste of Pau Play Day cake still remains.

This cake is made of glutinous rice and green peas. This white round cake is not easy to make as it looks. Choosing the best glutinous rice is the most important part of all. The rice need to be dried out carefully. Then, it is soaked in water for 2 hours and steamed till the rice well done. Afterwards, soaked rice is poured into a big wooden rice polisher and grind until well-kneaded, viscid and sticky. Filling is made from green peas which softly and smoothly isgrinded. When you break into the cake, you could see a beautiful green mixture inside.

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Pau play day cake is often sold by street vendors in the morning or you can find it in markets.

4. Salmon Sour Hotpot

Fish, more importantly salman fish in a mountainous region as Sapa? It's like a joke, right?

But it's not!

Sapa has an extremely cool weather all year round and the water here is pretty cold that is suitable for salmon to exist. It's explained why salmon sour hot pot is a familiar food to local people. The food has a timeless quality. No matter when you enjoy this hot pot, your eyes will littery light up talking about the dish.

The real star of the hot bot is its broth. It's a combination of several vegetable types and freshly caught salmon. Unlike other fish, salmon brings to diners an elegant and delicate flavor. Nestle up to a restaurant on Sapa hillroad and make an order of salmon sour hot pot, your heat beat is just a little bit faster.

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5. Bamboo sticky rice (Cơm lam)

Vietnameses have more than an obsession with rice. You can tase several kinds of rice along the way.

Bamboo sticky rice in Sapa is an abnormal version of rice. Different from others, it is absolutely cooked in bamboo sections. Local people spend spend hours on collecting the bamboo then cleaning and chopping them into small sections at about 30 centimeters in length. The locals mix rice with a little bit of salt then they stuff up bamboo with salty rice. Don't forget the water used to cook this dish. It's brought from the streams which is fresh and a little bit sweet. A biggest secret here is that you need to resolve the bamboo sections while grilling.

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Apart from salmon, brook fish is also a popular and favorite dish of both local people and tourists. Normally the locals just grill brook fish directly on charcoal. Step by step, the fishy smell will not be anymore. Instead, it's now crunchy, greasy, and packed full of tastiness.

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7. Tao Meo wine - a local whiskey of H’moong

Tao Meo wine is a popular and original wine of H’moong people. It is made from fruits of Tao Meo tree - a kind of tree grows naturally on Hoang Lien Son Mountain. It blooms at the end of spring in autumn so you can buy the fresh Tao Meo fruit from August to October. It serves up an amazing natural wine flavor for those who are seeking something unique in the mountainous region. Tao Meo wine comes perfect with unbelivebly good brook fish.

8. Khang Gai Dried Meat

Sapa is famous for dried meat especially dried buffalo meat. As the name refers, meat is well dried with an addition of seasoning. Each dried part of meat weighs about 2 kilos and can be stored for years. Khang Gai dried meat hosts a unique taste that can't be seen in anywhere of Vietnam. If you are a finger food lover, this food is created for you.

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9. Black Mushroom

Be favored by nature, Sapa has a wonderful climate that many kinds of temperate plants grow and black forest mushroom is a typical one. Local cooking scientists always know how to take advantage of their natural plants to make outstanding foods. Peopel stir fry mushroom with pork while others use it as a main component for hot-pot. On any cool day of a year, a plate of stir-fried black mushroom will melt your heart.

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10. Black chicken

Black chicken is a kind of small chicken with a dark skin. The locals here usually graze these black chickens naturally so chicken is quite tough and tasty. You can enjoy black chickens processed in many different ways but the best recommendation is the chicken soaked in honey then grilled directly on charcoal. It's more flavorful if you eat the chicken with a mixture of salt, pepper and lime juice.

When it comes to to food, it's not only about the stunning dishes you have for a meal. It's the people and stories behind the food. Among tens of cuisine suggestion for a mountaineous trip to Sapa, these above mentioned dishes are what you should take consideration for a memorable food trip.

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